As it became obvious that the Rockets’ interest in Smith had fizzled and that Houston could not give him the kind of deal that Andre Iguodala had received from the Warriors, Smith instead signed a four-year, $56 million deal with Detroit. Yahoo! Sports first reported the contract.

The Pistons are trying to climb out of the rut they’ve been in for the last six years, and see an opportunity to claim a playoff spot in what has become a watered-down Eastern Conference. But whether Smith is the guy to yank them out of that rut is highly questionable.

The reasoning goes back to the past nine years in Atlanta, where Smith could be as maddening as he was thrilling. When Smith was locked in defensively and stayed within himself offensively—driving to the basket, working to get to the paint—he was one of the East’s top power forward.

But for some reason, Smith has always fancied himself a shooting guard, and he took an average of 2.6 3-pointers per game last year, despite making only 30.3 percent of them.

A telling exercise comes courtesy of Synergy Sports. Take all the NBA players who had 300 or more possessions as spot-up shooters last year, and you’ll get a list of 13 names. Eight of those (Klay Thompson, Danny Green, Wesley Matthews, Carlos Delfino, Caron Butler, Ryan Anderson, J.R. Smith and Chandler Parsons) averaged better than 1.0 points per possession on those spot-up shots. Two (Metta World Peace and Chris Bosh) averaged 0.90 points per possession. Two more (Luol Deng and Corey Brewer) were at 0.85 points per possession or better.

Only one player jacked up that many spot-up shots and failed to reach the 0.80 mark. That would be Josh Smith, who averaged just 0.788 points per possession, by far the worst in the NBA.

It could be that the worst thing that happened to Smith was what many might think of as his best season, ’09-’10. Before that year, general manager Rick Sund and coach Mike Woodson sat down with Smith and convinced him that if he would stop chucking 3-pointers and instead focus on playing in the post and defending, he would be an All-Star and possibly the Defensive Player of the Year.

Smith complied. And he was fantastic, averaging 15.7 points on 50.5 percent shooting, setting career highs for rebounds (8.7), assists (4.2) and steals (1.6). Moreover, he took only seven 3-point shots the entire season.

But he wasn’t an All-Star. He was the runner-up to Dwight Howard in the Defensive Player of the Year balloting, but was not selected for first-team All-Defense, finishing behind LeBron James and Gerald Wallace. Smith had done as the Hawks had requested, but wasn’t rewarded. The next season, he was back to hoisting 3s, shooting 33.1 percent and taking 2.0 per game.

The Pistons’ problem is that you can probably live with Smith taking a reasonable number of 3-pointers, as long as he does the bulk of his work in the post and is engaged when it comes to defense, rebounding and tapping into his impressive playmaking skills. But the Pistons have a frontcourt-of-the-future in place, with Greg Monroe at power forward and Andre Drummond at center.

That means Smith will be at small forward, on the perimeter. That means he will have a license to take those spot-up shots, the ones he is among the worst in the league at actually making. That means we could see a whole lot of Smith missiles from the 3-point line. That is a problem.

Smith is very talented, there is no question. He is probably the best player in the NBA to have never made an All-Star team. But he has got to be in a system that brings him closer to the basket, that forces him to work in the post, that encourages him to pass up on those outside spot-up jumpers.

It is hard to see how that will happen with Monroe and Drummond in Detroit.